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Author: Marwan, N. × End date: 2024 × Start date: 2020 × Start date: 1990 × DDC: 550 × Publisher: London : Nature Publishing Group × WGL Institute: PIK ×

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Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Identifying causal gateways and mediators in complex spatio-temporal systems
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2015) Runge, J.; Petoukhov, V.; Donges, J.F.; Hlinka, J.; Jajcay, N.; Vejmelka, M.; Hartman, D.; Marwan, N.; Paluš, M.; Kurths, J.
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    A regime shift in the Sun-Climate connection with the end of the Medieval Climate Anomaly
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2017) Smirnov, D.A.; Breitenbach, S.F.M.; Feulner, G.; Lechleitner, F.A.; Prufer, K.M.; Baldini, J.U.L.; Marwan, N.; Kurths, J.
    Understanding the influence of changes in solar activity on Earth's climate and distinguishing it from other forcings, such as volcanic activity, remains a major challenge for palaeoclimatology. This problem is best approached by investigating how these variables influenced past climate conditions as recorded in high precision paleoclimate archives. In particular, determining if the climate system response to these forcings changes through time is critical. Here we use the Wiener-Granger causality approach along with well-established cross-correlation analysis to investigate the causal relationship between solar activity, volcanic forcing, and climate as reflected in well-established Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) rainfall proxy records from Yok Balum Cave, southern Belize. Our analysis reveals a consistent influence of volcanic activity on regional Central American climate over the last two millennia. However, the coupling between solar variability and local climate varied with time, with a regime shift around 1000-1300 CE after which the solar-climate coupling weakened considerably.
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    A deforestation-induced tipping point for the South American monsoon system
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2017) Boers, N.; Marwan, N.; Barbosa, H.M.J.; Kurths, J.
    The Amazon rainforest has been proposed as a tipping element of the earth system, with the possibility of a dieback of the entire ecosystem due to deforestation only of parts of the rainforest. Possible physical mechanisms behind such a transition are still subject to ongoing debates. Here, we use a specifically designed model to analyse the nonlinear couplings between the Amazon rainforest and the atmospheric moisture transport from the Atlantic to the South American continent. These couplings are associated with a westward cascade of precipitation and evapotranspiration across the Amazon. We investigate impacts of deforestation on the South American monsoonal circulation with particular focus on a previously neglected positive feedback related to condensational latent heating over the rainforest, which strongly enhances atmospheric moisture inflow from the Atlantic. Our results indicate the existence of a tipping point. In our model setup, crossing the tipping point causes precipitation reductions of up to 40% in non-deforested parts of the western Amazon and regions further downstream. The responsible mechanism is the breakdown of the aforementioned feedback, which occurs when deforestation reduces transpiration to a point where the available atmospheric moisture does not suffice anymore to release the latent heat needed to maintain the feedback.
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    Tropical rainfall over the last two millennia: Evidence for a low-latitude hydrologic seesaw
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2017) Lechleitner, F.A.; Breitenbach, S.F.M.; Rehfeld, K.; Ridley, H.E.; Asmerom, Y.; Prufer, K.M.; Marwan, N.; Goswami, B.; Kennett, D.J.; Aquino, V.V.; Polyak, V.; Haug, G.H.; Eglinton, T.I.; Baldini, J.U.L.
    The presence of a low-to mid-latitude interhemispheric hydrologic seesaw is apparent over orbital and glacial-interglacial timescales, but its existence over the most recent past remains unclear. Here we investigate, based on climate proxy reconstructions from both hemispheres, the inter-hemispherical phasing of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) and the low-to mid-latitude teleconnections in the Northern Hemisphere over the past 2000 years. A clear feature is a persistent southward shift of the ITCZ during the Little Ice Age until the beginning of the 19th Century. Strong covariation between our new composite ITCZ-stack and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) records reveals a tight coupling between these two synoptic weather and climate phenomena over decadal-to-centennial timescales. This relationship becomes most apparent when comparing two precisely dated, high-resolution paleorainfall records from Belize and Scotland, indicating that the low-to mid-latitude teleconnection was also active over annual-decadal timescales. It is likely a combination of external forcing, i.e., solar and volcanic, and internal feedbacks, that drives the synchronous ITCZ and NAO shifts via energy flux perturbations in the tropics.